Five Years
by Lily Norah
Summary: (Formerly Not Alone) Some stories need a bit of backstory, and everyone has a different take. This is mine of the five years leading up to Starship.
1. Chapter 1

She was unimpressive. She was short, barely five feet. She couldn't have weighed more than an hundred pounds soaking wet. She didn't speak to anyone, in English anyway. So why had the great Lieutenant Up brought this little girl to his starship?

Maybe it was because of what he had observed on the battlefield that had once been her home.

She was faster than anyone he had ever seen. She was fearless, not caring if she died as long as she took a few of those bastard robots with her. She was the only person other than a commander to ever yell orders at him.

So, seeing as she had no where to go, he let her tag along (not that she wouldn't have followed him anyway). She had sustained quite a few injuries, including a concussion. Her left arm was in a sling and a large white bandage covered most of her left cheek. She slept most of the time.

The third time Up went to check on her, four days after he brought her there, he realized he knew nothing about her. They hadn't spoken since he saved her from being smashed open. He didn't even know her name. The infirmary had her labeled in numbers, but he couldn't just call her 000-394. He decided he would ask her when she woke up, and plopped down in the chair next to her bed. As he looked at her sleeping face, he felt bad. Her entire family, gone in a flash, and now she was in a strange place with strange people. Her face was screwed up in a pained expression. Nightmares, most likely. Nobody goes through things like that without a few nightmares.

"Lieutenant Up?" Up turned to see an ensign standing in the doorway sheepishly.

"Yep," Up replied, standing.

"The Admiral wants you to report to him at 1800 hours, sir," the ensign stuttered. Up nodded and the ensign ran off.

Sinking back down into the chair, Up wondered what Admiral Rapp wanted to talk to him about. Glancing back at the girl in the hospital bed, he realized with a dropping gut that it was probably because of her. He hadn't been thinking properly when he towed her to the Academy with him.

At 1755 hours, Up left the infirmary and walked toward the Admiral's office. He passed a few ensigns who shrank from his path. It was nice to know his reputation preceded him at all times.

He knocked on the Admiral's door and took a deep breath as it opened.

"Lieutenant," the Admiral was standing behind his desk, shifting through papers. Up saluted him stiffly. "At ease, soldier." Up dropped his arm, but his mind started racing. What was the Admiral going to do? His mind kept coming back to one word: demotion. "Have a seat, Up."

The Admiral sat down in his cushy desk chair. Up sat down on one of the hard wooden chairs in front of the desk.

"Do you know why you're here, Up?" Rapp asked, idly shifting through papers.

"No, sir," Up replied, crossing his fingers.

"You're being reassigned, or, rather, the rest of your crew is. You are going back down to Dead God Forsaken, Mexico. We've located a robot base not far. Your new crew will be ready at 0600 hours," Admiral Rapp said, and laughed at Up's puzzled face. "What were you expecting?"

"Honestly, sir, I was expecting punishment," Up said, shifting in his seat.

"Punishment? Oh, for the girl. No, I wouldn't have expected any less, Lieutenant. The girl will be taken care of, and then taken to a refugee camp," Admiral Rapp smiled. "Have a nice night, Lieutenant. I'll see you on the drop deck at 0600 hours."

Hours later found Up back in the infirmary. The girl had woken up briefly, they told him, and muttered something in Spanish, but nobody had caught it. He was reading a book when she spoke to him.

"¿_Qué estás leyendo_?" she uttered weakly, turning her head toward him. He almost jumped. He hadn't expected her to wake up.

"No hablo español," he managed, trying to sound apologetic as he choked the words he had learned in high school. The girl rolled her eyes and groaned.

"What are jou reading?" she said after a held the tattered book cover up for her to see.

"Of Mice and Men," he said, taking it back into his lap and closing it.

"Is it any good?" she asked with a pained look. Up was worried now.

"Yeah, I like it. Do you need a nurse or," Up dropped of as she furiously shook her head.

"No, I just have a headache from trying to come up with these _estúpido_ English words," she claimed faintly, lying her head back down on her pillow.

But Up saw the thin trickle of blood dripping from her bandage. And when she stopped breathing, he had never moved faster. He leapt from his chair, knocking it over as he hit the emergency button next to her bed. He put his ear next to her nose, checking that she was not breathing. He yanked the thin blankets off of her small body, and began CPR. He tried to keep an even rhythm and after what he recalled to be the correct number of compressions, he took a deep breath, pinched her nose, and pressed his open mouth to hers, forcing air through to her lungs, feeling her chest rise under his hand. When she didn't respond, he continued with his compressions. After the second set of compressions, he took another deep breath and forced it into her lungs, willing her to breathe on her own. Suddenly, she gasped into his mouth. A nurse pulled him away as doctors flooded the room.

…

The girl was going to be okay. He had nearly gone crazy waiting for them.

"She's fine, Up. If you hadn't been there, though… well, you saved another life, Lieutenant. Now, go to bed. I hear you have a new mission, starting tomorrow," the girl's doctor told him.

"Thanks, doc," Up said, making to leave the infirmary. But once he reached the door, he doubled back to the girl's little cubicle, where she lay sleeping. Her heart had stopped. The doctors said it was because of blood loss and over exertion. It sounded like bullshit to him. But he studied her face, and for the first time she was relaxed. She couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen he realized suddenly. She had already lived through so much. But so had he. She seemed like a tough son of a bitch. She would make it.

* * *

**A/N: So, I'm newish here. New account, old author. This came to me while I was watching HMB, go figure. I've enjoyed writing again. Maybe I'll finish it...**


	2. Chapter 2

**Six months**

"¡_Hija de puta_!" she screamed as the nurse stuck a needle into her arm.

"Oh, good, you're awake," the nurse smiled.

"_Sí_, I am awake. How could I not be after jou shoved that _maldita aguja_ into my arm?" she said loudly. She heard laughing from several cubicles down.

"Is Taz up already, man?" the laughing voice asked.

"Jes, Kray-on-dare, I am up, and I'm coming for jou!" she shouted back, earning more laughter. In the six months she had been in the infirmary, she had never see Krayonder, but they talked quite frequently. He had two broken legs from a mission in Chicago, when two robots pushed him down an elevator shaft. But, more often that not, he pissed her off, like now.

"Okay, Taz, calm down," the nurse said, and Taz got visibly angrier. The nurse just smirked. "You know, they're talking about releasing you."

Taz lay still. Releasing her? It would be wonderful. She hated the infirmary. But she didn't want to go to the refugee camp. She would do anything not to join the starving masses of people whose homes ahead been destroyed. She had known that from the moment she woke up in the infirmary.

The day she remembered waking up had been bad. There were hundreds of tubes hooked to her. So, naturally, she started pulling tubes and IVs out and tried to clamber out of bed. She made it out into the hall before the alarm sounded. And then she collapsed.

When she woke up again, they explained everything to her. They told her she had stopped breathing and the Lieutenant that had saved her from the robots had saved her again. The Lieutenant. That was what everyone called him. She couldn't remember his face, though, she remembered his eyes. Blue. He was the first person she had ever met with blue eyes. They were like the ocean.

But she had never actually met him, and she was glad. There was no way she could ever repay him for saving her life twice. The only way she could think of beginning to repay him in any way was to save as many lives as she could, take down as many dead goddamned robots as she could.

"Well, if they're releasing me, I need to talk to the Admiral."

* * *

"And you're how old again?"

Taz sighed. She told him so many times she was starting to believe it herself.

"I am eighteen," she said smoothly. He didn't look convinced.

"I don't think so," he said. She felt like yelling, but she knew of she did, he definitely would throw her out.

"Look, Admiral, jou need Rangers. The _robotas_ are kicking jour asses. Jou can't prove I'm not eighteen. The _soldado_ who brought me back can tell jou I'm tough. I want to fight."

The Admiral smiled.

"Look, Miss...?"

"Taz. No 'Miss'," she said defiantly.

"Look, Taz, I've heard directly from Up about you. He seems to think I should give you a shot. It won't be easy, especially since you'll be the only girl in combat, but I've decided to let you join the Academy."

She couldn't believe what she heard.

"Go collect your things from the infirmary, Cadet Taz," he said, handing her a sheet of paper with his seal. "Here is your dorm assignment."

"Thank jou, Admiral, sir," Taz saluted him, and took the paper. She basically pranced to the infirmary.

"You better be right, Up," Admiral Rapp said aloud as he poured another glass of scotch. "You better be right."

* * *

Taz didn't fit in in her dorm. The first thing she did was avert her eyes from boys changing.

"Okay, _idiotas_, which bed is empty?" she yelled. At once, the room fell silent and fifteen heads turned to look at her. They looked her over. Small, choppy shoulder length black hair, tiny rucksack slung over her shoulder, and a pillow tucked under her arm. Easy target.

Immediately the choruses of vulgar comments commenced. Taz clenched her fist.

"You can share with me, ba- OW!" the boy cradled his nose as he fell back onto his bed. Taz shook her hand, wiping the blood off.

"Any body else got something to say?" she asked, and fourteen heads shook. "Good. Now which bed is empty?"

The top bed nearest the bathroom was open, and Taz clambered up into it. The bed was small, but larger than the ones in the infirmary. She placed her few belongings on the shelf carved into the wall. She opened her rucksack, pulled out her new cadet uniform, and headed to the bathroom.

It didn't fit. It was the smallest that they had, and it didn't fit. She sighed, but pulled the belt tighter. Taz walked out of the bathroom and everyone fell silent again. She rolled her eyes.

"I'm not going to kill jou," she muttered as she climbed back into her bed. She picked the only book she had off of her shelf and began reading.

"Whatcha' readin'?" a boy asked, standing next to her bed.

"Oh, uh, none of jour business," she said, but flashed the cover nonetheless. The boy nodded.

"Of Mice and Men," he said.

"_Sí_," she said, trying to ignore him. She tried to let herself be absorbed into the book, but the boy was still there. "Can I help jou, _idiota_?" He shook his head, looking embarrassed.

"No, actually, I wanted to apologize for how we acted. It just, most girls are in science or tech. You're the first girl in combat for the last four years," he said, his cheeks flushing. He extended his hand to her. "I'm Jensen."

"_Me nombre es Taz_, now go away, I'm reading," she said, turning her back to him. She heard the boy walk away, and slowly the room grew noisier. "Thank dead God," she said to herself. She read on, willing morning to come sooner.


	3. Chapter 3

**Six months**

Up collapsed on his bed roll, hand sifting through the Mexican dirt beside him. He missed the stars, he realized as he looked up at them. But now he was in action. His crew was tired and ready to go back to their starship and see their families after six months of fighting robots. Up was different. He had no family, and he hadn't since he was thirteen. The only person he had was a girl who didn't have a name. He wondered what she was doing. She was probably in a refugee camp by now. He had told Rapp she would make a good ranger, but the Admiral had shown no interest in recruiting her.

Up found himself longing for his starship. It had never happened before, and he was puzzled. Surely he didn't miss a girl he barely knew.

"Sir?" Up groaned.

"Yeah, Finch?"

"They found it." Up sat bolt upright. The robot base.

"Then let's go, dead goddammit!" he shouted, grabbing his zapper and his rucksack. "We're going home tonight."

...

"Okay, Finch, Fletchly, Robbins, and Flower go with Up. You're the detonate squad. The rest of you with me; we're rescuing prisoners and stealing plans,," Commander Dents said quietly. "Now let's go kick some fucking robot ass."

Commander Dents and his squad took the left passage.

Up motioned his group forward. They shifted carefully down the tight, claustrophobic passageway. According to his Holo-Map, they were heading straight to the engine room, where the robots' production was. Once they destroyed that...

"Ouch, stop stepping on my foot," someone behind him whispered. Up rolled his eyes.

"If the two of you don't stop actin' like children, I'm gonna be steppin' on your asses," he threatened. Silence. "Now, we're almost there. Does everyone remember what you're supposed to do?" Everyone muttered yes. Up grabbed his zapper pistol from its holster. He stepped out of the hallway and into the engine room. Robbins and Flower followed him. He flagged them ahead, then turned to see Finch and Fletchly kissing.

"I love you," one of them muttered, and the other said it back. Up turned and cleared his throat. The two apparent lovers scurried ahead of him, their fingers parting as they split up. Up shook his head and ran straight into the middle of the room.

He hit the butt of his gun against an important looking computer screen. The following siren confirmed that it was, in fact, important. The sound cut off nearly as soon as it started. Finch nodded at him, pointing to her watch. She had cut the computers, and it was time. Up smashed the computer he had hit, and the surrounding ones. There was no way the damn robots were going to be able to retrieve any data from them.

"Fletchly, Robbins, Flower, are the charges set?" he tapped quietly into his communicator. The code was a pain in the ass, but it was all they knew that the robots didn't know. Once Up had confirmation, he tapped to Commander Dents.

"We're out, we have the plans, at your ready," the commander sent back.

"Five!" Up yelled. Three ensigns and a tech officer ran past him. Up counted two more, hit the charge button, and ran like hell. As he made it out of the passage, he nearly ran into his crew.

"Don't stop, keep running!" he yelled, ushering them. It was going to be a big explosion.

He turned in time to see that he wasn't far enough away.

* * *

**Eight months**

His head hurt. And his arm. And his leg. And his... everything, really. He tried to open his eyes, but couldn't. The same when he tried moving.

"Dead God, don't let me be dead," he begged in his head. "Being dead would suck." Then he heard hushed whispers.

"You think he'll be okay?" "Yeah, the doc thinks so." "I hope he wakes up soon." "We should go; us being here isn't doing him any good." "We aren't hurting him either, Jim."

Up recognized then to be his crew. They had survived. He tried as hard as he could to open his eyes.

"Guys, I think he's awake," one of them said excitedly.

Up wiggled his hand.

"Someone call a nurse," the same voice said.

Up forced his eyes open, and he looked around at his crew hovering over him. They all peered down at him, excitement on their faces.

"Whatcha' all looking at?" he croaked.

"We thought you were dead, man!" Flower said, grinning stupidly.

"And why's that?" Up asked, trying to reach the cup beside his bed that he could only presume had water in it. Finch took the cup and carefully helped him drink from it.

"Well, sir, you've been, uh, well..." she stuttered, when Fletchly interrupted her.

"You've been in a coma for the last two months," he said plainly, wrapping his arms around Finch when she put the paper cup down.

"Wha-" Up started, but Robbins came around the corner with a nurse.

"I found a nurse- hey, Lieutenant-Commander," he stopped abruptly, saluting Up.

"Lieutenant-Commander?" Up asked as the nurse started checking his vitals.

"Open," she commanded, tapping his mouth. He complied, and looked back at his crew as she checked his mouth.

"Well, Up, you blew up the biggest Robot base on the continent and saved four of your crew members from that explosion," Robbins said, wiggling his eyebrows at Up as the nurse started checking his heart.

"We should go, Up," Flower said. "We'll see you soon."

"Bye, Up," his crew chorused as they left. The nurse stood up.

"You are going to be okay. You will probably be cleared to leave in a week or so," she turned to leave.

A week, he thought, was entirely too long. When the nurse left, he got out of bed and hurriedly dressed in the uniform he found beside his bed.

* * *

"Come in," Admiral Rapp called, wondering who would need to see him this late. As the door opened, he chuckled.

"I need a room and work assignment, Admiral," Up said, arm up in salute.


End file.
